Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition [Paperback]

Silence, John Cage’s first book and epic masterpiece, was published in October 1961. In these lectures, scores, and writings, Cage tries, as he says, to find a way of writing that comes from ideas, is not about them, but that produces them. Often these writings include mesostics and essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance procedures using the I Ching. Fifty years later comes a beautiful new edition with a foreword by eminent music critic Kyle Gann. A landmark book in American arts and culture, Silence has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. Wesleyan University Press is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication with this special edition.Special edition of the book that revolutionized our understanding of how we make and experience artForeword to 50th Anniversary Edition by Kyle Gann
Foreword
Manifesto
The Future of Music: Credo
Experimental Music
Experimental Music: Doctrine
Composition as Process
Changes
Indeterminacy
Communication
Composition
To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music of Changes and Imaginary Landscape No. 4
To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music for Piano 21-52
Forerunners of Modern Music
History of Experimental Music in the United States
Erik Satie
Edgard Varèse
Four Statements on the Dance
Goal: New Music, New Dance
Grace and Clarity
In This Day...
2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance
On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work
Lecture on Nothing
Lecture on Something
45’ for a Speaker
Where Are We Going? and What Are We Doing?
Indeterminacy
Music Lovers’ Field Companion